Question

Flying squirrel and flying phalanger show convergent evolution. Justify.

Answer 1

Hint: Flying squirrels are a tribe of fifty species of squirrels within the Sciuridae. they’re ineffective for flight in the same way as birds or bats but can glide from one tree to another with the help of a patagium, a furry, parachute-like membrane that stretches from wrist to ankle. The mammal genus contains flying phalangers or wrist-winged gliders, a gaggle of arboreal marsupials.

Complete answer: Convergent evolution is that the independent comparable features in species of various periods. Convergent evolutions create analogous structures that have similar form or function but weren’t present within the last common ancestor of these groups. The cladistic term for the identical phenomenon is homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight may be a classic example, as flying insects, birds, pterosaurs, and Independently evolved the useful capacity of bats to have a flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution analogous, are whereas homologous structures or traits have a typical origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat, and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but there are homologous, sharing ancestral state forelimbs despite serving different
The two succulent plant genera, Euphorbia and Astrophytum, are only distantly related, but the species within each have converged on the same body form. The opposite of convergence is comparable to parallel evolution, which occurs when two independent species evolve.

Note: Sugar gliders have a pouch like a kangaroo does, which provides shelter and safety for their babies at birth, a baby sugar glider is which provides shelter and safety for their offsprings at birth, a baby sugar glider smaller than a peanut. Flying squirrels, on the opposite hand, have a much larger size of offspring and no pouch is found. By studying their genes and other traits, biologists have puzzled out that sugar gliders and flying squirrels are probably not very closely related. Sugar gliders are marsupial mammals and flying squirrels are placental mammals.